Awhile back I bemoaned the lack of full discussion about copyright and its uses. Specifically the fact that noone seems to mention or care about the Fair Use clauses in American copyright law. Well it seems that it was simmering below the surface all along and at last has seen some light of day.
Slashdot | Fair Use Must Be Considered In DMCA Notices.
“US District Judge Jeremy Fogel has ruled that an ‘allegation that a copyright owner acted in bad faith by issuing a takedown notice without proper consideration of the fair use doctrine thus is sufficient to state a misrepresentation claim,’ which paves the way for a lawsuit against Universal Music over a ridiculous DMCA Takedown notice they filed.
Its good to finally see those words somewhere in all of the legal wrangling. The specific case pertains to a woman who posted a very low quality video of her toddler dancing along to a Prince song. The studio sent a takedown notice and YouTube complied. Now the court has ruled that the studio was under an obligation to at least attempt to determine if the offending clip qualified as Fair Use.
I thnk this moves the needle in a good direction by stating that it is up to the copyright holder to be judicious in their use of the DMCA notices and not the responsibility of the person using the material to cover all legal bases before using copyrighted material in a legal manner.
